[zug_zug]

I have a long and healthy career in tech, including some companies you would have heard of. At one point in the last 6 years I briefly worked for a manager just as bad as what you describe. I quit within 3 months, and I'm so glad I did.

I've never had anything quite like it before or since. These stories are worth remembering and sharing, had I been less wordly at the time I might have suffered a psychologically unhleathy work dynamic for longer, thinking it was my problem to fix.

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Edit: Just as one example, one random Tuesday that boss called me up from California (he was remote, I wasn't) and, out of the blue, asked "How can I justify your salary?" No real company is going to ask you a mind-screw question like that once they hire you. I didn't really need the job and basically explained to him, "I have no idea if you need my specific skills at this company, that's ultimately your job to figure out. If you don't I'm sure I'll find somewhere else that does need them. And you must realize that if you call me up and say something like this, you're basically going to make me wonder if I need a new job for a whole day."

Maybe the moral of this story is to invest a lot of money early, so you have that escape-hatch in case things go south.

[extr]

Thanks for chiming in. I honestly felt gaslit by the whole ordeal, I would come home and tell my partner somewhat similar stories to your own and she would recoil in horror at the toxic work environment. And then I would somehow end up defending the situation as "not that bad" lest I reveal myself as...what...weak? Unable to handle the combination of long hours and constant criticism? Crazy what can be normalized so quickly.

One of the better examples from my situation: The CEO of the company (who was buddy-buddy with my boss, and a micromanager himself) had a habit of dialing people's personal cell phones and putting them on speaker in meetings if he wasn't satisfied with the information in the moment. "Hey John, extr here tells me that we can't look at data XYZ until you've repopulated the database? Care to explain more? ETA on that?". I spent a lot of time apologizing to people for getting them in those situations - until someone explained not to worry about it because they were all used to it. This was in a post-series-C startup with hundreds of employees.

[UncleOxidant]

There are a lot of bad managers out there. In some cases it's because they never had any kind of training in how to be a manager. I lasted at a place 6 months at a place with a terrible manager (see my post elsewhere in this thread) who went from being an individual contributor to suddenly managing 6 people - he was just really bad at managing. At some point you just have to quit and move on. If enough people vote with their feet maybe we can weed out these bad managers.